Methods and tools

Data work at neighborhood scale starts by finding what exists, recording its limits, and creating new evidence when public records cannot answer the question.

Public records and RTI

Identify which department holds a record, file a focused request when necessary, and preserve the request, response, and timeline together.

Procurement records

Connect budgets, tender notices, contracts, vendors, amendments, delivery dates, and reported outcomes.

Messy datasets

Clean inconsistent fields, record transformations, check units and dates, and compare related sources before drawing conclusions.

Original datasets

Create structured records through repeated observation when the needed information does not exist in a usable form.

Community-generated measurement

Use sensors, field logs, photographs, maps, and repeated observations to document local environmental and service conditions.

Collaborative verification

Ask people with direct knowledge to check interpretation, supply missing context, and identify misleading categories or assumptions.

Open source intelligence uses publicly available material to investigate a question. At neighborhood scale, it can help establish where and when something happened or how a place changed.

• Satellite and aerial imagery Compare historical images to track green cover, water bodies, construction, land use, and possible encroachment.
• Geolocation Use visible landmarks, routes, terrain, signage, and other evidence to verify where an image or event belongs.
• Chronolocation Compare timestamps, weather, shadows, uploads, and related records to verify when something occurred.
• Public online material Use public posts and community pages to identify concerns or leads, then verify them through independent sources and local context.

Technical investigation checks how a public-facing system behaves rather than relying only on product descriptions, policies, or official claims.

• Website and service audits Check availability, accessibility, broken links, security practices, data requests, and whether important tasks can be completed.
• Static app analysis Inspect packages, declared permissions, bundled code, trackers, and configuration without running the application.
• Dynamic app analysis Observe network communication, permission requests, data flows, and behavior while an application is running.
• Platform behavior Compare recommendation, moderation, and collection practices with published policies and user-facing controls.

Community-led investigation depends on shared verification skills, safer ways to handle material, and infrastructure that can remain useful during platform or network failures.

Verification workshops

Practice source checking, story identification, geolocation, records work, and collaborative review with local examples.

Safer documentation

Cover threat modeling, secure communication, password managers, phishing, device hygiene, encrypted backups, and metadata awareness.

Collaborative reporting

Create clear ways for people to contribute observations, leads, corrections, and local knowledge to an investigation.

Local-first case files

Test local wikis, shared files, encrypted backups, offline knowledge bases, maps, dashboards, and communication tools.

Emergency continuity

Explore offline-first applications, local servers, mesh networking, and neighborhood information systems for floods, power cuts, shutdowns, or platform failures.

Reusable methods

Publish templates, datasets, code, and replication notes, and contribute improvements to useful open-source tools where possible.

Organizations, toolkits, and published work that can inform neighborhood-scale investigation.